Observator

The Raveonettes have always had a promiscuous relationship with pop history, dredging grungy 1950s juvie rock and 60s girl groups through 70s punk and 90s shoegaze. A decade into its career, the band seems to be settling comfortably into itself, which is good and bad.

When the Raveonettes burst out of Copenhagen 10 years ago, they recorded each of their albums under a strict creative constraint, which seemed a bit arbitrary at the time. Every song on their 2002 debut EP, Whip It On, was written in B-flat minor; B-flat major defined their first full-length, Chain Gang of Love, a year later. For catalog highlight Lust Lust Lust in 2008, Sune Rose Wagner trashed all the crash cymbals and played all the instruments himself. "I always put a little bit of restrictions on myself, and I only do it for my creativity," Wagner told Pitchfork that same year. "And I do it sometimes because I want the music to stand out a little bit more than many other bands do."

Those restrictions distinguished their first batch of albums, and even the subtle loosening up on 2005's Pretty in Black, their most polished and, some might say, overcooked record, gave it a specific sonic identity. Moreover, it implied a sense of growth and development, painting Wagner as something of a gleefully mad scientist; despite being dismissed as gimmicky, the Raveonettes prospered in the wake of the millennial garage rock movement, even as groups like the Vines withered and fell away. In retrospect, those restraints seem impressively savvy, as they always kept new ideas and new moods in reserve.

Perhaps because those simple guidelines so defined those early releases, the piano appears to play a much more prominent role on Observator, their latest album, than it actually does. It's the main instrument on the second track and early single "Observations", which marks the first time the Raveonettes have showcased the instrument in their music. It suggests a musical theme for the record, as though Wagner had challenged himself to write every song on keyboard instead of guitar. Especially following the skeletal, spryly despairing opener "Young and Cold", the piano's heavy sustain becomes a kind of drone in itself, slyly tweaking our expectations for shoegaze drift. Those pounded chords square off against the sharp notes of Wagner's rockabilly guitar to give the song its perverse, nocturnal vibe, which suggests the Raveonettespossess the power to transform even the sunniest afternoon into post-hangover 3 a.m. In a year when one of the biggest pop hits evokes the vodka-commercial glamor of a night spent club hopping with attractive friends, "Observations" picks up the party a few hours later, when all your friends have abandoned you and you're not sure how you're going to get home.

A full album in this vein sounds promising, but unfortunately, Observator has no interest in teasing out that mood or even using that instrument again. The piano is quickly discarded and with it any sense of the album as a distinct entity in the Raveonettes' later catalog. They can still set a specific mood with just a few notes, and Wagner and Sharin Foo deliver some of their spryest hooks on "She Owns the Streets" and "The Enemy", but these songs sound suspiciously light, lacking the urgency or stakes of their best material. Especially on the second side, Wagner indulges a particular strategy of repeating lines until they resemble hooks without actually hooking you. Especially sequenced back to back, "Downtown" and "You Hit Me (I'm Down)" quickly become grating, making even a short album-- just over thirty minutes-- sound interminably long.

Wagner has written that he was listening to the Doors while he was writing these songs, which is a dangerous prospect for any artist. The Raveonettes even recorded several tracks at Sunset Sound Studios in Los Angeles, where the Doors recorded their debut. In fact, the Raveonettes have always had a promiscuous relationship with pop history, dredging grungy 1950s juvie rock and 60s girl groups through 70s punk and 90s shoegaze. A decade into their career, on Observator they seem to be settling comfortably into themselves, integrating their influences and fascinations into lush drones and dark riffs. But it's hard to shake the feeling that the album sounds too comfortable, too familiar: It's so deeply entrenched in their comfort zone that it sounds too easy-- not effortless, but automatic and rote. There's too little joy in their lyrical or stylistic transgressions, as though they're content to simply observe rather than take action.